"The modern master of the gamebook format" (Rob Sanders)... "Can do dark very well" (Jonathan Oliver)... "Green gets mileage out of his monsters" (SFX Magazine)... "It takes a firm editorial hand and a keen understanding of the tone of each piece to make a collection this diverse work, and Green makes it look effortless" (Starburst Magazine)

Friday, 27 January 2017

Still wondering whether you should back the Kickstarter or not? Well here's what some readers had to say about SHARKPUNK (Volume 1) on Amazon...

"This collection is well worthy of your time. Every story is a winner in my opinion and they are all a great deal of fun. In all honesty I’d have great difficulty picking a favourite.""If I could give this book more than 5 stars, I would... Usually, I go into an anthology expecting to like about 75-80% of the stories and to find an uneven quality of story-telling, but I didn't find a single one I didn't like.""In the interests of transparency, I should probably fess up to being a huge fan of anything with a fin in it. I am that person who happily watches the likes of Sharknado... While some of the stories featured in Sharkpunk are as gloriously silly as anything Asylum has ever offered, equally there is also some really thrilling horror and some surprisingly touching psychological chillers... There's not a weak story among the lot, probably because it would get turned on and eaten by the others.""This book was, pardon the pun, fintastic. Each story revolving around Sharks in one form or another, be it physical or mental and in some both. The calibre of writers assembled to contribute to this book was impressive... I cannot recommend this book enough and you don't even have to be a fan of sharks to enjoy it...but it helps. 10/10"

"Put simply, Sharkpunk is twenty unique visions of what it means to be either predator or prey. This anthology contains stories that don’t just feature sharks, they also dissect the mind of a perfectly evolved killer. Nestled deep in the pages of this collection you’ll find everything from stories set in feudal Japan to tales featuring men with an impressive olfactory sense. Steampunk, horror, science fiction and thriller blend together to create a collection that revels in the raw, bloody savagery of an apex carnivore."

Thursday, 26 January 2017

As well as the rewards to receive copies of SHARKPUNK 2, the Kickstarter also features a number of add-ons. These can either be selected by themselves, or added to the other pledge levels by adding the appropriate funds to the total pledged.

Some people who back the Kickstarter will have already read SHARKPUNK (Volume 1) but some won't, so that's one of the rewards on offer, along with the other anthologies I have edited for Snowbooks, including GAME OVER and Shakespeare Vs Cthulhu.

The other anthologies I have edited for Snowbooks.

There is also the option to add the SHARKPUNK Audiobook, produced by Circle of Spears, which backers of the SHARKPUNK 2 Kickstarter can get for the reduced price of £15.

Remember, these add-ons can be selected by themselves or added on to any other pledge level.

So, for example, if you want the hardback of SHARKPUNK 2 and would also like the SHARKPUNK Audiobook, then you would pledge £50 for the GREAT WHITE reward + £15 for the audiobook, making your total pledge £65.

Or, if you would like the MEGALODON reward (£80), and SHARKPUNK (Volume 1) (£13), GAME OVER and Shakespeare Vs Cthulhu (£20), as well as the SHARKPUNK Audiobook (£15), then you would pledge a total of £128.

Wednesday, 25 January 2017

And those people who get on board early will be rewarded by having access to a number of Early Bird rewards.

Usually these kinds of rewards are limited in number, but Kickstarter have now introduced an alternative option, whereby a project's creator can dictate how long a reward is available for. So, for the first week of the Kickstarter's run, the GREENLAND SHARK, HAMMERHEAD, GREAT WHITE and WHALE SHARK rewards (which all include physical copies of SHARKPUNK 2) will be available with a £5 discount.

However, there is still one limited reward, and that is the MEGALODON reward, which includes a very special reward that fans of Sky Sharks will want to get their hands on.

Last week I posted a link to a review of my first proper short story for Black Library, Salvation, which was written 20 years after I wrote the story!

I was actually interviewed by Track of Words about my recollections regarding the writing of the story (which were a bit fuzzy, considering it was two decades ago!) and the resultant brain-fart was posted online here.

Friday, 20 January 2017

"This book is probably the best Fighting Fantasy book since Vault of the Vampire. If you like dark eerie, mysterious and atmospheric gamebooks of this series, and you thought Vault of the Vampire was good, then you will definitely enjoy this book, it may be your favourite yet.

"Other ones you may prefer to read are Dead of Night, Night Dragon, Eye of the Dragon, Revenge of the Vampire, and Howl of the Werewolf.

"This maybe the best gamebook yet, alongside the much overlooked Knights of Doom and Spellbreaker. Spellbreaker had the best story line and challenges and this is up there with that one.

Thursday, 19 January 2017

Bearing that in mind, it's always a pleasure to come across readers who are discovering the series for the first time. For example, here's an extract from a review written in September last year*:

"Steampunk abounds in a never-ending Victorian empire where Good Queen Vic has been kept alive way beyond her natural span... with technology and near the present day Victorian tech has shaped an alternative Earth."Green's particular skill is with his info dumps bringing us up to date on the Pax Britanna world... The underground has been superseded by an Overground, there are sort of steam powered robot police and lots of extinct animals have been found and put into Jurassic Park style zoos."Enter our hero, traditional action adventurer, in the Quartermain mould, Ulysses Quicksilver. He is assigned to investigate a strange death... but soon uncovers a plot by... a group that wants to bring an end to an empire they see as corrupt and past its lifespan..."A readable style, which flows along nicely with enjoyable characters."

Tuesday, 17 January 2017

One of the more unusual, unexpected, and unforgettable gigs of my writing career (which is 25 years young this July) was being invited to write the novelisation of Richard 'Kip' Carpenter's unmade teleplay for Robin of Sherwood: The Knights of the Apocalypse.

Whilst writing it early last year, and immersing myself in all things Sherwood again, I was reminded of various landmarks in my life that featured the very best interpretation of the Robin Hood legend on screen, ever!

I was a teenager when the series was first televised. I remember balmy summer evenings, making sure I was back home after playing with my friends in the street to watch Robin of Sherwood, and having to draw the curtains to avoid the sunlight reflecting off the tiny TV screen. I was oblivious at the time to the fact that a fair proportion of the viewing public would be watching it for the tousled, '80s-mullet good looks of the lead actor(s)* - I tuned in to enjoy stories of action and adventure, of derring-do and dastardly deeds, of mysticism and paganism.

It was the magical and supernatural elements of the show that appealed to me the most, and what made the programme so different from all the other on-screen iterations. I thought the addition of the pagan shaman Herne was inspired, I couldn't quite believe the Baron de Belleme was about to carry out a satanic sacrifice on what was purportedly a children's show in Robin Hood and the Sorcerer, I was chilled by the appearance of Cromm Cruac, and I thrilled at the arrival of the gigantic wolf's head in The Time of the Wolf. I particularly delighted at the twist ending to the episode Rutterkin. But most of all I was blown away by The Swords of Wayland, with the angelic figure of Lucifer being summoned via the method of reversed-wax-melting.

When Robin of Sherwood was on, the Sunday morning after would find my friends and I in the local church choir dissecting the incidents of the previous night's episode when we were supposed to be getting ready to sing the anthem at the Eucharist.

Jump forward a few years and I found myself sharing a house with nine other young people in Leamingston Spa, all of us students of Warwick University. It turned out that I wasn't the only one upon whom Robin of Sherwood had made such a big impact. My friend Mike - who everyone called Bez at the time, as you do - was also a fan. Saturdays would often find us trawling the local video hire shop for shockingly-bad horror movies to watch that evening.

But one particular day we made a diversion to WHSmith, where we found Robin of Sherwood on sale in VHS format. Being poor, impoverished students, we decided to go halves on The Swords of Wayland two-parter. Taking it back to our rented house, we watched it for the first time since it had been on TV half a decade or more before - and it was just as good as we all remembered, if not even better, because our mutual friend Dave had a much bigger TV than my parents did at home.

When the time came to leave university, I somehow managed to inherit The Swords of Wayland (I'm still not sure how or why) and it inspired me to shell-out some of my hard-earned cash (I was a published author by then) to buy all three series on video, which were replaced, in time, by DVD box sets.

Robin of Sherwood had a big impact on my writing career, long before I came to write The Knights of the Apolcalypse novelisation. My first published book, the Fighting Fantasy adventure gamebook Spellbreaker, features a band of outlaws, each bearing a moniker that could have easily described one of Kip Carpenter's Merries - Outlaw Leader, Scarred Ruffian, Staff-Wielding Outlaw, Veteran Brigand - and their leader just happened to be in possession of a magic swords. My second book, Knights of Doom, featured a Mercenary Champion, who looked suspiciously like Nasir when he was taking part in Owen of Clun's death game, and even some dodgy mummers.

Later, when I was working as a teacher in West London, I wrote a Christmas production about the history of Christmas**. One scene featured a mummer's play; I adapted the mummer's play from the Robin of Sherwood episode The Lord of the Trees, finished it off in the same style, the play having no ending in the show.

And the tone of the show, the quality of the writing, its heart, its warmth and its humour, has stayed with me ever since. Every couple of years I watch the shows again, in order, and I'm looking forward to introducing them to my children next time. (I listen to Clannad's soundtrack album Legend even more often***.)

Having loved Robin of Sherwood for more than two-thirds of my life (and 'loved' is not a word I use lightly) I am always wary of new adaptations and wonder how some people can dare to do Robin Hood again when the definitive version was produced back in the 1980s. But that said, I have an itch to tackle the legend myself, in my own way, by putting a spin on things. Will it be ready by the time the third Hooded Man convention takes place in 2018? Who knows, but the thing is, it doesn't really matter, because I'm the lucky so-and-so who got to write Robin of Sherwood again, 30 years after the show ended.

Talking of which, because The Knights of the Apolcalypse novelisation wasn't available anywhere outside of the original Indiegogo campaign to fund the audio version, there's no one convenient place for people to leave their comments and reviews. If you would like to do so - and reviews, no matter how brief, are always very valuable and helpful for authors - please feel free to do so in the comments after this blog post. After all, nothing's forgotten...

Here's to you, Mike! :-)

* Something which only really dawned on me when I attended my first Hooded Man convention back in 2014!

Sunday, 15 January 2017

"The concept is a good one to base an anthology of short stories around. The premise is what if Shakespeare rather than Lovecraft had discovered the Great Old Ones and in particular Cthulhu. So the book is based on stories written by the great bard, but all with a Lovecraftian bent."I enjoyed reading the book, but it also one I was pleased to enjoy in hard copy rather than in Kindle form, and that's down to the format and the typesetting. The design is taken from play manuscripts of the time and adds a sense of visual aesthetic to the read. It also helps ground the stories it contains..."The story about Henry V really shone for me. It was also interesting to see how the different authors tackled the blend in stories. Some were more explicit than others, while some simply took inspiration and followed their own path. The Twitter sonnet at the end was a nice construct."While the variance in quality can be expected in an anthology like this, it's strength also stems from that variety. The range of stories from Shakespeare is impressive, as is how they were handled. There's some lovely craft here."

Friday, 13 January 2017

Whether you're superstitious or not, you can't help but at least recognise the associations surrounding today's date, Friday the 13th.

For many, it is considered to be an unlucky day, so in an effort to avert that ill-fortune, today I am drawing your attention to a couple of freebie of mine, that you can download and enjoy for no money whatsoever! Simply click on the appropriate image below.

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Here's what people have been saying about my books...

"Green deserves 10/10." - The Independent

"As welcome as a warm glass of mulled wine on a wintry night, Green's guide to Christmas enhances the pleasures of the festive season, offering a witty cornucopia of Christmas facts and folklore." - The Good Book Guide

"As usual, author Jonathan Green gets mileage out of his monsters, with big action set-pieces that read like Things We'd Like to See in a rip-roaring summer movie if the creature effects were good enough." - SFX Magazine

WRITTEN BY JONATHAN GREEN

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Jonathan Green

About Me

I am a freelance writer and editor, well known for my contributions to the Fighting Fantasy range of adventure gamebooks. I have also written for such diverse properties as Sonic the Hedgehog, Doctor Who, Star Wars and Games Workshop's worlds of Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000.
I am the creator of the alternative steampunk universe of Pax Britannia, and have written eight novels featuring the debonair dandy adventurer Ulysses Quicksilver.
As well as my fiction work, I have also written a number of non-fiction books including 'Match Wits with the Kids', 'What is Myrrh Anyway? Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Christmas' and 'YOU ARE THE HERO - A History of Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks'.